


I hope you find it

by betsytheoven



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: 5+1 Things, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-24
Updated: 2015-12-24
Packaged: 2018-05-08 19:14:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,224
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5509865
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/betsytheoven/pseuds/betsytheoven
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bitty bakes when he is stressed, and sometimes Jack happens to find him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I hope you find it

**Author's Note:**

  * For [flawlessassholes](https://archiveofourown.org/users/flawlessassholes/gifts).



> I hope you enjoy this, I had a lot of fun writing it!!
> 
> Thanks to Alyssa, Sarah, and Idril for picking through this and making sure I didn't write anything too terrible!

**1.**

 

Bitty bakes when he’s stressed. 

 

To be fair, he also bakes when he’s happy. And when he’s excited. And when he’s tired. But stress-baking is a whole different experience. It takes a while for the flour and butter to leech the tightness out of his muscles, to ease the pressure behind his eyes, to steady his breathing, but it works. 

 

The first time he truly stress-baked in the Haus kitchen was the night after their first practice early in Bitty’s sophomore year. The coaches had pulled him aside after practice earlier and... 

 

That night, Bitty rolled out pie crusts to roll out the knots that settled high in his shoulders and threatened to cramp up the back of his neck. He sliced apples to feel that sharp knock against the cutting board that helped him to breathe a bit more regularly. No music, just baking. 

 

Bitty pushed a little harder on the rolling pin.  _ He couldn’t be kicked off the team. _

 

_ How would he pay for Samwell? _ The crust thinned.

 

_ Would he still be allowed to live in the Haus?  _ Rotating the crust, Bitty pushed the rolling pin out again in hopes that the bundle of knots between his shoulder blades would shrink.

 

_ Would the team still talk to him? _

 

He looked down and saw a paper-thin pie crust. With a sigh, he balled the dough up and started over. The last time he had started over on a pie crust was before he left for Samwell, and he was horribly embarrassed that his mother had walked in to see his crust in shambles. At least this time it was well past midnight and everyone who was still up in the Haus was holed away in their rooms, so no one had to witness this little breakdown of his.

 

“Bittle?”

 

Bitty closed his eyes for a second. Great, conversations always went s _ o well  _ when he was stress-baking. He forced out a shaky breath before turning around with a wide smile. 

 

“Jack? What’re you doing up past your bedtime?”

 

He held up an empty glass that Bitty assumed was for water.

 

Jack’s hair was a ruffled mess, and his shirt was adorably wrinkled. He squinted at Bitty and blinked a couple times before shaking his head and moving across the kitchen to inspect the counter. 

 

“Did we really need more pie at one in the morning?”

 

Bitty huffed, fiddling with the hem of his apron, “With the way y’all eat around here...” 

 

Jack didn’t say anything, and suddenly the kitchen was drowning in silence.

 

The pause was so sudden that it rang loud and long in Bitty’s ears, and he nearly slammed the rolling pin down on the counter to break up the silence. The poor old kitchen counter wouldn’t survive a hit like that. 

 

Jack shuffled around the kitchen, fixing himself a glass of water. Bitty quietly made his crust. Those knots were quickly reforming high in his shoulders and Bitty wanted to cry. This wasn’t how this year was supposed to go. Things were getting better, he could have  _ sworn _ they were. 

 

“No music tonight? It’s not like anyone’s asleep yet around here.” Jack was leaning against the counter next to Bitty, glass of water untouched. 

 

Bitty shook his head softly. He lifted the pie crust from the cutting board and slipped it into the glass pan. He silently went about molding it to the dish, poking air holes in it with a fork. 

 

“Hey,” Jack’s hand landed firmly on Bitty’s forearm, “you doing ok?”  

 

Hearing the soft, genuine concern laced in Jack’s quiet voice nearly broke Bitty. He had to swallow hard to keep himself together, keep himself smiling. He wouldn’t be the team disappointment, not again.

 

“Of course, Jack. Why wouldn’t I be?”

 

Apparently that was the wrong thing to say because it made Jack huff harshly and set his glass down on the counter with a loud clatter. He crossed his arm and turned until only his hip was leaning on the counter, so he could face Bitty with a grumpy, almost offended look. 

 

“Why? You’re baking later than normal, even though you said the oven gets cranky after her ‘bedtime,’ you aren’t listening to music, even though you are  _ always _ listening to music, and you ripped a hole in the bottom of your pie crust. You don’t do that.”

 

He looked down, and oh. The crust had ripped. Again.

 

“Come on, Bittle.” Jack pushed off the counter and moved to pull Bitty away from the kitchen. 

 

“No wait, I still have a pie in the oven. I’ll go to bed soon Jack, promise.” Bitty was in a bit of a daze, he would admit. But nothing could possess him to willingly burn a pie. He couldn’t add another disappointment to the already long list.

 

“I’ll take it out when the timer rings. Bed. Now.” 

 

He glanced back at the oven, but sighed softly. The pies clearly weren’t helping, not tonight.  He left the counter a mess and stumbled upstairs, Jack’s hand at the small of his back. 

 

  
**2.**   
  


 

Epikegester 2014 wound down around 3am, so by 3:15 Bitty was cleaning the kitchen in an attempt to work out the stiffness that had crawled into his shoulders from the second he overheard Kent Parson in Jack’s room.

 

He still hadn’t talked to Jack since he disappeared behind his door only to make the most heartbreaking noises. Kent Parson had left the Haus hours ago and Jack still hadn’t left his room. 

 

There had been a short quest to see if Shitty could help talk to Jack, but Shitty’s face had just dropped when Bitty explained what he heard and saw. With a sigh, Shitty handed Bitty a fresh cup of tub juice. 

 

“Give him time, Bits. This whole thing with Kent isn’t an easy thing for him, just... let him sort through it. They’ve got a lot to figure out still. And don’t bring it up around the team, yeah?” 

 

Bitty absentmindedly nodded and wandered off to go find Lardo to cling to for the rest of the kegster.

 

The kitchen after the party was a mess. Solo cups and spilled tub juice (“like toxic waste, man”) littered the floor, and someone’s jacket was in the oven. The rest of the Haus was bound for a good scrubbing in the morning before everyone left for winter break, but Bitty set to the task of cleaning the kitchen before all of the spills and stains set in. If the stains didn’t set in the floor, maybe the stress wouldn’t seep into his bones and keep him from sleeping. 

 

It took less than an hour to save the kitchen since it wasn’t the biggest room in the Haus by any means. Poor Betsy was a little disgruntled at being bothered during the party, but other than that, the kitchen was sorted before 4am rolled around and Bitty was free to bake. 

 

There was still a steady buzz running just under Bitty’s skin that was keeping him from settling for very long, so he resigned himself to a sleepless night. He decided to mix up some no-bake tarts that would soothe the savage hockey players in the morning without requiring him to test Betsy’s temper after her bedtime. Crushing up the graham crackers was cathartic, but the truly calming part was hand-whipping the whipped cream. Adding air to the whipped cream seemed to slowly chip away at Bitty’s headache. 

 

While mixing up the tarts, Bitty kept playing through various scenarios in his head for how the next morning would go. How would he talk to Jack? Would he bump into him in the hallway? Or would he see him in the kitchen first? What if he didn’t come down for breakfast? What if he just left incredibly early for the airport? There were a plethora of scenarios, none of which sounded like a comfortable setting for talking about whatever  _ that _ was last night. 

 

He was resigned to just hope for a simple, civil nod, maybe a kind, “Have a good break” before they went their separate ways for break. 

 

Or Jack could just wander into the kitchen at 4 in the morning. 

 

He glanced over to see Jack grabbing something out of the fridge, but Bitty stayed facing the counter, frozen where he stood. 

 

There was nothing to say to him right now that would make any sense. Bitty could apologize, but for what? For overhearing? He could try to console Jack, but Bitty didn’t even know he knew Kent Parson until tonight, so he would definitely make a mess of things. 

 

For once, he just did not want to talk to Jack. 

 

Jack dragged the water pitcher out of the fridge and shuffled over to the cabinet to get a glass. With a quick glance, Bitty saw that Jack hardly, if at all, registered his existence. He was still stuck in his own mind, and Bitty let out a terribly guilty relieved sigh. 

 

Bitty didn’t think stress-baking would unravel anything for Jack, so instead of offering to help or saying anything to him, he just slid one of the tarts next to Jack’s hand and continued assembling the rest of them. 

 

A few minutes later, Jack shuffled away and up the stairs without a word. Shoulders sagging,  Bitty turned and saw that the tart was gone. 

 

He didn’t know if he was more relieved that Jack took the tart, or that he hadn’t said anything to Bitty. 

 

Bitty sucked in a soft, shaky breath at that realization. He hadn’t been so glad to  _ not _ talk to Jack since their first handful of practices in his Freshman year. He finished up the last tarts and slipped them in the fridge. Some knots had unraveled themselves, but if he was fixing to sleep after that lil’ encounter with Jack, he was horribly mistaken. 

 

He rolled his shoulders and decided that if he isn’t sleeping he he might as well be productive and set about whipping up some cookies. Betsy cooperated and maybe some good ole’ fashioned chocolate chip cookies would help bring a smile to Jack’s face. 

  
  


**3.**

 

“Betsy, honey, all I need you to do is do your job. Your one. Job.” 

 

The old, weathered oven responded by flickering its oven light, putting off much less heat than the 350 degrees she promised she was warmed up to.

 

Bitty threw his head back with a dramatic groan. 

 

“Please. Just bake one. Darn. Pie.” He punctuated each word with a solid hit to her stovetop. 

 

With a heavy sigh, Bitty sunk to the ground in front of Betsy. 

 

“Does hitting the oven really fix it?”

 

Bitty dropped his head to his knees. He never meant to wake Jack up with all of his oven-related frustrations. The soft swish of Jack’s sweats swept across the linoleum floor until he sunk to the ground next to Bitty. 

 

“What’s wrong with it?”

 

“ _ She _ just doesn’t want to work. Dex fixed her a few weeks back, but now she won’t heat up unless you give her a few hours to get there.” 

 

Jack nodded like he was trying to think of a solution. But Bitty knew he was barely awake. It was past two in the morning, and Jack had escaped up the stairs around 11 that night. Jack rocked a bit to bump his shoulder against Bitty’s, making him look over at his captain (his teammate, his friend, his love) with a small smile. 

 

“I think even your oven is telling you to stop baking.” 

 

Bitty gasped lightly, “Jack Zimmermann, you take that back. I will not tolerate a mutiny in my kitchen.”

 

Jack gave him a sideways glance before rocking back to lean on his hands. “ _ Your _ kitchen?”

 

Bitty huffed and settled onto the ground alongside Jack. Their hands were too close, but Bitty figured Jack wouldn’t even notice, so he let himself have this one little moment. 

 

“Until you boys learn how to make one solid meal in this kitchen, I have earned the right to call it  _ my _ kitchen.”

 

Jack laughed and their pinkies overlapped. 

 

“Well your kitchen seems to be closed for the night. We’re supposed to have checking practice in... four hours.” Their pinkies were still touching. 

 

Bitty groaned, “Jack, one day off, please. That’s all I ask.”

 

Jack laughed and shook his head, “Take one day off, and suddenly checking practice will never happen again.” 

 

Bitty rolled his eyes, but sighed contentedly. It was after two in the morning on a Wednesday, he needed to be up in four hours, and his pie wouldn’t be very good after sitting in the fridge all night. But he was sitting quietly next to Jack on the kitchen floor and their pinkies were still overlapping, and maybe everything would be ok. 

  
  


**4.**

 

He needed to finish these pies. Just a few more mini pies to pack into boxes for them to take on the road away from Samwell. Just a few more...

 

And there were the tears again. 

 

Normally, baking enough mini pies for two people would hardly take Bitty an hour. He had started at 11pm and now it was 3am, and he still didn’t have enough pies to give them tomorrow. 

 

Graduation was tomorrow. 

 

It was ridiculous, he tried to convince himself. It wasn’t like  _ he _ was graduating, he wasn’t even close. They would all still talk and text and see each other because technology was an amazing thing.

 

No matter how he tried to convince himself, though, he still felt like he was trying to wade through the humidity of Georgia at summer’s peak. His limbs weighed more than they should, he was thinking through a haze, but he kept drowning in thoughts of losing his new family. He finally found people who he was comfortable around, but now they would be gone...

 

“-ittle?”

 

Bitty blinked rapidly and turned around. Jack and Shitty stood in the doorway, both of their jackets still on. 

 

“Oh, did y’all just get in? It’s so late!” Bitty rubbed his hands on his apron, trying to compose himself. 

 

Shitty nodded, slipping his jacket off. “One last walk, y’know? I’m gonna go crash, though.” He patted Jack’s shoulder as he slipped around him to climb the stairs. 

 

Instead of turning to follow Shitty, Jack stepped towards the kitchen. He pulled a chair out from the table, tilting his head softly to invite Bitty over. He sighed, it’s not like he was accomplishing much with his pies tonight. 

 

“You’ve been at it for a while now.”

 

Bitty raised an eyebrow, not exactly following. Jack nodded over to the mess on the kitchen counter. He huffed out a small self-deprecating laugh. 

 

“I was trying to make pies for you and Shitty to take with you tomorrow when... for tomorrow.”

 

“Trying?”

 

Bitty waved over to the counter, where flour seemed to have exploded and dough was scattered across the counter haphazardly, some dough even slipping down the cabinet below the counters.

 

They sat in silence for a few minutes. It was too early to say goodbye, and too soon to talk about... other things. 

 

A few minutes later, the oven timer started beeping. Bitty pulled himself out of the chair and crossed the kitchen without a word. He pulled out the few mini pies that he had managed to put together and started to clean up the mess he had created. 

 

“Can I help?”

 

Taken a bit by surprise, Bitty turned to give Jack an incredulous look. 

 

“Ok,  _ help  _ might be a bit generous.”

 

Bitty cracked his first real smile that week. Jack hip-checked him and helped him clean up and start again.  

 

While Jack sliced the apples (they were horribly uneven, but Bitty would never say a word), Bitty went about rolling out the pie crust again. They all turned out perfectly.

 

His hands shook a bit when he was forming the little pies, still blocking out thoughts of the event happening in a few hours, but the air was lighter. 

 

Jack spent a lot of time in his own head too, understandably. But they took turns hip-checking each other out of their own brains, and Bitty flicked flour at Jack when his own thoughts got to be too much. 

 

It’s wasn’t perfect, but it was good. 

  
  


**5.**

 

He loved his family, really he did. Except... well, they weren’t the most liberal bunch of people around. Which was usually fine, except when Bitty was about to bring his... Jack to the Fourth of July with the whole extended Bittle clan. 

 

No one round these parts knew he was gay, so he couldn’t very well take the homophobic comments they made as personal insults... but he did. His time at Samwell sort of lulled him into this false sense of security. He could attend LGBTQ+ events at Samwell without checking over his shoulder or coming up with an excuse in case someone saw him. He flirted with cute guys in his classes, and didn’t flinch when Ransom and Holster nudged him about a cute guy. He was more comfortable. 

 

But not in Georgia. 

 

Which is why Jack had flown down for the Fourth of July. He was moral support and a piece of Samwell, a piece of his comfort in a place that made Bitty want to curl up in his room for a few days. Jack came to help him muddle through the massive family gathering that happened every year, while also probably looking for new things to chirp him about.

 

The gathering itself was wonderful. All of Bitty’s pies were a hit and Coach passed him a beer after Bitty made a comment about Aunt Judy’s crocs. Jack stayed close and the heat was manageable. His cousins were not. 

 

The comments got out of control within an hour and Bitty just wanted to escape and not have to deal with the fact that his family seemed so dead set against who he was. His cousins had walked off for a moment to grab burgers, so Bitty jumped at his chance at freedom. He asked if Jack wanted to see the old hill down the road, so of course he nodded and followed Bitty away from the party. Mama wasn’t too pleased that he was bailing, but Jack rubbed the back of his neck and persuaded her. 

 

“Sorry m’am. I just was worried we wouldn’t get much chance to explore, and parties overwhelm me...”

 

Mama waved them off then and Bitty led the way to the hill overlooking the little lake at the center of town. 

 

They had watched the fireworks that they shot out over the lake from their little perch on the hill, and by the time they got back home, everyone had cleared out or gone to bed. 

 

It was a good night. 

 

And yet, Bitty still found himself in the kitchen at three in the morning with a tightness in his chest that he needed to be rid of. 

 

With all the leftover pies in the fridge, Bitty opted for making fresh bread for Coach and Mama to use in the morning. It also gave him the opportunity to knead the dough and really pull out whatever it was that was keeping his chest too tight. 

 

He was kneading the second loaf when a hand touched the back of his neck. Bitty jumped and put a dough-covered hand over his mouth to suppress a noise too loud for that time of morning. 

 

He turned around to face Jack, whose hand was still hovering in midair between them, but whose face still wore a soft smirk. 

 

“How are you always in the kitchen at some horrible hour of the night?”

 

Bitty huffed, “I just get more stressed at night!”

 

“And staying up late helps with that?” Jack leaned against the counter and smirked down at Bitty. 

 

“ _ Baking _ helps with the stress.”

 

Jack was silent, so Bitty moved his two dough balls into oiled bowls to rise. He set about making some other dough to turn into more bread and maybe cinnamon rolls in the morning. There was some bustling about and then some quick mixing before he was back to kneading again, stress slowly seeping out of his chest with every push of his palm. 

 

“Better?”

 

In the peace of baking, Bitty had almost forgotten about Jack. He looked up and nodded, dough slowly looking smoother. 

 

“The kitchen is quieter after midnight.” Bitty said softly, turning the dough, “I always feel at home in a kitchen, but more so after dark. It’s all mine after everyone has gone to bed, and I don’t have to do anything but bake.”

 

Jack was giving him a concerned look, but Bitty pressed down and pressed on, “It’s not that I don’t love a lively kitchen, but there’s something about the stillness of a kitchen at night, where the only thing moving in it is you? I’m hardly making sense but it helps. It makes the stress and the tension go away, even if only for the night.” 

 

Bitty looked up to see Jack nodding softly. 

 

“That’s how skating is for me. Not always hockey, but just getting my skates down on the ice... it helps slow everything else down.” 

 

There was a soft silence where Bitty rapidly shaped the bread into a pristine ball, but when he looked up, Jack was moving out of the kitchen. Bitty made a move to stop him, but Jack shook his head softly. 

 

“Don’t let me intrude. You need a break after all that you put up with today. Besides, my air mattress is calling to me.” 

 

And off Jack went. 

 

It didn’t unsettle him or make him feel like he needed to chase Jack up the stairs. In fact, it actually made Bitty smile ever so slightly as he started in on the cinnamon roll dough. He could trust Jack to understand when he just needed to be alone without being left Alone. It was an odd sort of domestic peace that Bitty didn’t expect to find in Georgia. 

 

It was a good night.

 

**+1**

 

It was two in the morning on a Tuesday and Bitty was rolling out sugar cookie dough on the gorgeous granite counters in his apartment’s kitchen. All he had to do was sprinkle a little bit of flour on the counter, and he instantly had enough room to roll out all the cookies he wanted. No more interruptions to his therapeutic baking by having to sort out where to roll his cookies. 

 

He started cutting shapes out, eating only small chunks of the outline as he went. Large arms slipped around his shoulders and crossed over his sternum. 

 

“What’s stressing you out?” Jack mumbled sleepily into Bitty’s right ear. 

 

Bitty sighed and leaned back into his boyfriend. “I am officially meeting your team tomorrow. As your boyfriend.” 

 

He could feel Jack smile softly, but honestly, Bitty wanted to do anything but smile right now. Jack loosened his arms and gently turned Bitty away from the cookies. 

 

“They loved you before, they will still love you now. You’re the same Eric, except now you get to hang out with the families of the other guys when we’re away.” 

 

Bitty sighed softly and turned back to his expanse of dough. Logically, he knew very little would change. His parents and friends already knew before Jack made the decision to be the third openly gay player in the NHL, so he knew the majority of things wouldn’t change. But the Falconers were a huge part of both of their lives, and Bitty didn’t want to mess up the wonderful relationship he had with a lot of Jack’s teammates. 

 

Jack slipped a piece of dough off the counter and smirked at Bitty’s indignant face. 

 

“Bake your stress away, ok? I’m going to go watch the Ken Burns Civil War documentary, but whenever you’re done, we have that last episode of the Great British Baking Show to watch.”

 

Bitty ducked his head so Jack wouldn’t see the small grin that was threatening to turn into a full-blown one. Already that feeling of something lodged in his throat was dissolving, but Bitty still needed to bake a bit more to get to a place where he could actually sleep. 

 

Jack gently kissed his hair before shuffling down the hallway to their bedroom. 

 

This is what Bitty always wanted when he was stressed. He wanted someone to check in when he was baking, but he never wanted someone to pull him away. He needed this, needed an outlet for the electricity that sometimes buzzed just below his skin. But he also really needed someone to pop in and check on him, remind him of the world outside of whatever it was he was stressing about. 

 

It wasn’t until he lived with Jack that he realized what his stress-baking had been lacking all along: a light at the end of the tunnel. The man waiting up to watch their favorite show together, but not rushing Bitty out of the stress baking. Bitty discovered that, to fully unravel the knot of stress tied in his chest, he needed to know that there was something peaceful and happy waiting. He just wanted to know that he was accepted and loved, no matter the outcome of whatever he was stressing about. 

 

And he found it. 

  
  



End file.
